UK Surgeons Separate Rare Conjoined Baby Girls (PHOTO)

A team of volunteer surgeons in the U.K has successfully separated craniopagus (head-to-head) twin baby girls Rital and Ritag Gaboura. Even at the time of their birth last year in Sudan, the girls had already beaten the odds: a high percentage of craniopagus twins (40 percent) "are stillborn or die during labor, and another third die within 24 hours."

Although Rital and Ritag did survive beyond infancy, by the time they reached London last spring to begin the complex surgical separation, Ritag's heart was starting to fail from the extra effort of pumping blood to and from her sister's head. Facing the World, the foundation that funded the rescue, says the girls were separated without any neurological side effects, and they can now be heard playing and laughing in the hospital as they recover. Their overjoyed parents hope to take them back home soon.